


Send Out the Signal

by midnightflame



Series: Homecoming [9]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Keith is also impulsive, Keith may be a little obsessive, Lance still has terrible humor, Rescue Missions, They may also have a moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 14:58:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9390047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: Keith has spent weeks trying to locate Shiro, and he may be getting more help than he thinks.OrLance finally gets his bonding moment with the worst possible timing. Welcome to Paladin life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> As I look at my notes, I realize this series is slowly starting to come to a close. I am hoping to get the Shiro companion piece to this part soon so please look forward to that. And I know there is no Shiro/Keith direct action in this particular piece but it is part of this series, so keeping that for consistency's sake. Anyway, I rather enjoyed writing these two and their awkward yet somehow brilliant relationship, and I hope you all enjoy this part as well! It is decidedly less dark than Shiro's will be. . .

“You know, Keith, buddy, _pal_. . .”

Lance pokes at one of the maps scattered across the floor with the tip of his boot, his eyes lingering on Keith. All he gets is a brief meeting of gazes before Keith is staring back down and scribbling something around what appears to be a small planet. Or a star. 

Or maybe it’s just a crumb of something Keith had eaten earlier, when he actually remembers to eat, which has been something of a common theme over the last three weeks. 

“Right. You really gotta do something about this whole conspiracy theory, camped-down-in-the-hull-of-some-super-intergalactic-space-castle, the-world-might-end, crazy vibe you’ve been simmering in because it’s getting a little. . . creepy. No, actually, it's getting a lot creepy.”

Keith continues writing, but not before pausing just long enough to flip Lance off.

“Oh, real mature there, Keith,” Lance deadpans, shoving the map he had been toeing towards Keith in a petulant huff. “Here I am trying to give you some advice on how to be less. . . _you_ , and that’s all the thanks I get.”

“You’re not exactly being helpful, Lance.”

“Oh, but aren’t I?” 

When the bowl of. . .space goo (because they’ve never really come around to calling it anything other than that though Coran has tried endlessly to inform them of all its various components) is placed down in front of him, right over the spot he had been addressing, Keith finally sets Lance with a good, long stare. He’s standing there, his arms held out to the side, expectant of praise like some dog that had just read its master’s mind and performed the most holiest of tricks. The whole image has the corner of Keith’s mouth curving, a faint smile in play.

“Maybe you aren’t entirely useless,” Keith offers as he pulls the bowl towards him.

“HEY!” A pause. “Well. . .it’s not like we need you dying on us or anything. Gotta do what I can, even if it means keeping you from studying yourself into starvation.”

“I’m not going to starve myself.”

Lance eyes him critically, waiting until the spoon is fully in Keith’s mouth before speaking up again. “Hunk is pretty dead set on the idea that you are. And then you’ll start haunting this castle, and the last thing I want is you floating in on me while I’m trying to get my beauty sleep. . .Pidge says there’s no way that could happen though, but I bet she’s never been any place truly haunted so what would she know.”

Keith’s expression flattens, his tongue running along the underside of the spoon as his thoughts pile up. Then, he exhales, spoon dipping into goo, and continues to stare down Lance with all the unimpressed irritation he can conjure up. 

“She’s a genius, so she knows a hell of a lot more than you do. And besides, when have _you_ ever been to some place – “ and he pauses just then, head tilting to the side, his gaze flicking down as he stirs his spoon “- _truly_ haunted?”

“I’ve been to your cabin,” Lance cuts back quick, grin stretching wide and proud over his lips.

The light in Keith’s eyes goes out so very, very suddenly, as the spoon’s handle clatters against the inner rim of the bowl. “So has Pidge.”

Lance’s grin falters, brow furrowing and lips pursing together as he delves into thought far too deeply for anything this situation could rightly call for. “Oh, right. . .Well, you’re still being an idiot.”

“How is that even –“ Keith throws a hand in the air, face lighting up with exasperation. “No, forget it. . .”

Without another word, he swipes the bowl up from the floor and begins shoveling the food into his mouth. Anything to keep him from saying all the things Lance would want him to say and sending them into some weird never-ending merry-go-round of idiocy. It’s only when he finally registers that Lance is laughing, out right _laughing_ that Keith stops, swallows, and turns his fiercest glare up at Lance.

“I’m sorry, but it’s just. . .you actually have a little color to your face now.”

And it hits, quick and heavy, the weight of all the worry he had cast upon rest of them, heaped over everything they already carried. He lowers his arms, cradling the bowl in his right hand, and glances at the controlled chaos all around him. There are several screens lit up to his right, hovering just over the keyboard Pidge had lent him last week. Spread in an arc around his body are maps, pinpointing potential Galra fleet locations, and before him a small notebook with coordinates and calculations for distances courtesy of Hunk. And just behind him, the Red Lion is lying down, head resting on one mechanical paw, where Keith has nestled against it night after night while the Black Lion watched over them both. 

Keith exhales a shaky laugh, his eyes fixed on the mostly eaten bowl of goo in his hand. 

“Thanks, Lance.”

“Yeah, no sweat. It’s what I do.” Lance goes quiet for a moment, more of a breath really, then quietly, cautiously, starts again. “We all want to find him. I mean, we’re not really Voltron without him.”

Keith nods, once, then sets the bowl aside. Clearing his throat, he pushes the small notebook aside and points over at the map, around the same area he had been scrawling over upon Lance’s arrival, then indicating two other locations.

“I think there’s a good chance he’s in one of three places, based upon everything we’ve learned about Galra, especially over these last few months.”

“They’re pretty far apart. . .” Uncertainty glosses Lance’s words, but it’s something Keith can understand, even if begrudgingly so. 

“I know, but we’re coming pretty close to this –“

There’s a sharp, mechanical _crack_ that rebounds around the room, spilling a shiver down Lance’s spine. Keith’s head snaps around, gaze fixed pointedly on the Black Lion.

“Keith. . . .you know how I said all that stuff about hauntings and such?”

“No, Lance. It’s not haunted.”

“It totally moved, dude! Why did it move?!” 

He thinks that maybe Lance is right, the Black Lion had moved. Something had changed, at the very least, though Keith can’t find the words to solidify that fact. He only knows that there is a strange buzzing at the back of his head, information garbled, a transmission hit with interference, but he knows that there is someone telling him something, and all he can think is that he has to move.

Now or lose this feeling forever. 

“Shiro. . .” Keith murmurs, his gaze dropping from the Black Lion and back to the map. “He’s there.”

At the sound of Shiro’s name, certainty drops like a piece of onyx and sinks to the very core of all that he is. Immutable and absolutely beautiful. 

“You don’t know that! Keith, listen to me, let’s go talk to the others and Allura. . .We're all here and we can -”

Swiping the map from the floor, Keith rolls it quick and neat and tucks it into his jacket. A breath later and he’s on his feet. 

“Tell Pidge I’m taking that code and her transport vessel.”

“What are you even talking about?” Lance cries out, hands at his sides, his expression perfectly frustrated. “What code? And how can you even think about hijacking her ship!?”

Keith can’t help but smirk in the face of it. At the end of it all, Lance really isn’t such a bad guy. Not that Keith will ever tell him that exactly. “Don’t worry. Pidge will know exactly what I’m talking about.”

As he turns his back on Lance, his lips pull to a tight line, grim and determined. 

“What about that distress signal?!”

That puts a pause in Keith’s step. Then, he’s shaking his head, pulling his back straight once more. “You’re going to have to do that one without me. After all, you said it, Lance – we’re not Voltron without Shiro. I’m getting him back.”

Keith can hear Lance muttering under his breath, words he can’t completely comprehend but knowing well enough they mean nothing good for him. It’s not nearly enough to stop him. But just as he’s out of earshot, Keith does hear Lance’s parting words, loud and exasperated and spiked with just the smallest bit of regret.

“C’mon, Keith! I thought we were having a moment!”


End file.
